


044 "blueberry yogurt"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [44]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fish out of Water, Kid Fic, My Pepper is different, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Iron Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is thrilled that he and Pepper are having a baby; Pepper less so, thanks to swirling hormones and dietary restrictions. Their biggest challenge, however, is deciding on a name for the baby, not to mention understanding the point of even having a name. “This was definitely not the stoic and contained Pepper I had known for years, but rather the moody and mercurial Pepper I had lived with the past few months.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	044 "blueberry yogurt"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. The timeline is Chapter 2 of story 031 “wet.”
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

“—and we went to the bowling alley, I think, which was a big treat because we didn’t have a lot of money, and we had sodas and snacks and just bowled until really late—after 9pm! It was a lot of fun.”

“You went _bowling_ on your eighteenth birthday, Mom?” Mikey—er, Mike—asked in a tone that was close to scoffing. “With your _family_? Didn’t you want to go out and do something with your friends?”

“Says the little punk sitting here with _his_ family,” I reminded our young man with a smirk.

“Yeah, but we’re going out _later_ ,” Mike protested. “Me and Kaitlyn and everyone are going to that dance club downtown—“

“I know, it’s gonna be so awesome!” I enthused.

Rae looked up sharply from the remains of her meal. “Wait a minute. You mean _Uncle Tony_ is going to go out with you guys?”

I grinned smugly. “Yeah. I’m providing the adult supervision!” Somehow I thought Rae would almost prefer her teenage son and his friends go out alone.

“And he’s going to get us _into_ the club,” Mike added exclusively. “It’s real exclusive.”

“ _Very_ exclusive,” corrected his mother. “If you can’t even get your grammar right you may not be old enough to go out.”

Mike ignored that threat and turned to his father across the table on the back patio. “What did _you_ do for your eighteenth birthday, Dad?”

“Joined the Air Force,” Rhodey replied seriously.

Mike waited a moment but nothing else was forthcoming. “That’s is? No party?”

“I may also have stayed out past the curfew for minors,” Rhodey decided. “But probably only by five minutes or so.”

Mike’s expression clearly said he couldn’t believe what squares his parents were. Well, I didn’t know _why_ he couldn’t believe it; he’d grown up with them, after all. Their idea of a wild time these days was barbecuing in the backyard when it was _cloudy_. As was the case today. Fortunately, I was around to balance things out.

“Uncle Tony, what did my dad _really_ do?” Mike asked cleverly, knowing I would gladly give him the sordid truth.

If I knew it myself, that is. “Sorry, kid, I wasn’t around then,” I was forced to admit. “In fact, I don’t think I was even born yet. Your dad is _really_ old, you know.” There was much eye-rolling at this claim. “Your dad helped me celebrate _my_ eighteenth birthday, though!” I informed him eagerly. I liked telling stories. “We went down to Mexico and—“

“Stop,” Rae commanded. “I don’t want to hear about anything illegal, immoral, or irresponsible.” There was silence in the backyard for a moment and she turned to check on me. “Tony?”

“And then we came home at the end,” I concluded. “Nothing else in the story meets your draconian standards. Actually,” I snickered, remembering, “even getting _into_ Mexico was kind of—“

“Tony.” I stopped talking at Rae’s request. The children were _teenagers_ now, you know, and far more impressionable than they had been at six or seven. I was not supposed to be a bad influence on them. I knew Rhodey remembered the trip, though, because he was smirking nostalgically as he went to tend the grill. “What about you, Pepper?” Rae asked. “What did you do for _your_ eighteenth birthday?”

This could be awkward. I thought Pepper would have been at Brookhaven around that time, and we hadn’t really shared that much of her past with Rhodey and Rae. “Say, Rhodey, have you seen the specs for that new model—“

“I had a chocolate cake,” Pepper cut in. “With sprinkles. And lots of ice cream.” Okay, this story seemed relatively safe. Maybe she was just going to make something up. “And there were balloons. But I didn’t understand them and they frightened me, so they took the balloons away.” Scratch the ‘safe’ bit. She had now captured everyone’s attention. “And I got a present, which was a magazine that had an article about Tony in it. Someone cut it out for me, because I wasn’t allowed to use the sharp scissors, and I put it on my wall with all my other articles about Tony. Also people were doing cartwheels, and there were goats. But I don’t think that was for my birthday. Just in general.”

There was a very long pause. “Guess I’m not the only one who celebrated my birthday by dropping acid!” I proclaimed cheerfully.

“I _did_ drop a lot of things back then,” Pepper agreed seriously. “I wasn’t very coordinated. I’m thirsty.”

“Let me get you some more water, dear,” Rae offered, taking her glass. No doubt she was glad of something sane to do after that story.

“I want some soda,” Pepper complained to me. “Or coffee. Or a Jack and Coke. Or a milkshake!”

“No, no, big no, and no,” I reminded her sternly. “Water, milk, juice. That’s it.”

Pepper pouted. She was surprisingly good at it, despite having only recently acquired the skill. “I want another burger.”

This I was prepared to allow. “Rhodey, you got another veggie burger ready over there?”

“Coming up,” he assured me. “Bring me a plate, would you, Mike?”

The boy hopped up and dutifully transported the veggie burger from the grill to the porch swing Pepper and I occupied. “Here you go, Aunt Pepper. You want ketchup or mustard with that?”

“Yes,” she avowed. “And pickles and onions and lettuce and tomato and brown sugar and cheese and chocolate and Doritos and—“

“Pickles, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard,” I instructed Mike, who whisked the plate over to the condiments table.

“Are onions not allowed now?” Rhodey asked conversationally. “They’re in the veggie burger already.”

“No, that’s just for me,” I assured him. “I don’t want Pepper to have onion breath later.”

“Here you go, Pepper,” Rae said, handing her a fresh glass of water.

“Thank you,” Pepper replied, miserably.

“And here’s your burger, Aunt Pepper,” Mike added. “Um, wow, that baby’s gonna be really healthy, huh, eating all those vegetables.”

“Nice try, Mike, appreciate it,” I assured him as Pepper’s face crumpled up and she started to whine. “Come on, eat your burger,” I coaxed her. “It looks really yummy! You want me eat some of it?”

“No,” she replied possessively, taking the plate away from me. “You can hold the _water_.”

“Okay.” Dr. Robinson had freely confessed that he didn’t know what the nutritional needs of a gestating half-human, half-hmm-not-really-sure were, but that didn’t stop him from issuing Pepper a strict and lengthy list of foods to avoid. Which unfortunately contained almost all of the foods she loved best. So between that restriction and the swirling sea of hormones Pepper now waded through, she was not usually a happy camper. And when I say ‘camper,’ I mean a bulky, awkward transportation device… which Pepper would probably agree with at this point.

“So I heard you and your dad went to register you to vote already,” I commented to Mike. “What say tonight you and I go out to buy cigarettes and get tattoos?”

“He’s not doing either!” Rae insisted, as we all knew she would.

“He wouldn’t have to _smoke_ the cigarettes,” I assured her. “Just _buy_ them. And the tattoo could be something nice. Like ‘Mom’ in a heart. Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

Rae didn’t look like she was falling for it. “And Uncle Tony could get one with Aunt Pepper’s name,” Mike argued playfully. “You don’t already have one of those, do you, Uncle Tony?”

“Nope, sure don’t,” I replied. “Just ‘Stark Naked’ across my a-s. But I could get one that said ‘Hot Pepper’ right next to my—“

“Tony!”

These people were so much fun, honestly. I didn’t even know how I would have ended that sentence, because I knew I’d never get the chance to.

The conversation moved on, much to Rae’s approval. It was a nice spring day, except for the clouds, and inside the barricaded backyard everything was peaceful. Helicopters occasionally went by overhead, but I was confident I could successfully sue anyone who invaded our privacy with aerial photographs. I had done it before, anyway. Being a celebrity superhero had its drawbacks, unfortunately.

“You’ve stopped swinging,” Pepper observed with disapproval. Somehow I had dared to pause in my duty of gently rocking the swing with my foot.

“Well, you said you _wanted_ me to stop swinging after we got married,” I deadpanned. “You said you weren’t into that.”

“Tony!”

“Start pushing the swing again,” Pepper ordered, staring at me intently. “ _Please_.”

I complied, but shuddered a bit first. “Did you _hear_ that ‘please’?” I asked the group teasingly. “Wasn’t that just about the _nastiest_ ‘please’ ever?”

“Well she’s _pregnant_ , Tony,” Rae reminded me unnecessarily. “It probably makes her feel less nauseous. Jim and I used to drive around in the car all the time.”

“Yeah, but what about _after_ you got pregnant?” I quipped, then ducked as Rhodey threw an oven mitt at me. “Anyway, I doubt she feels nauseous, she’s gobbling down food all the time.”

“Swinging makes the creature kick less,” Pepper informed us.

“Ooh, is he kicking now?” I put my hand on her belly, waiting for the little tremors she hated so much. “And don’t call him ‘the creature.’ You’ll like him better once he’s outside of you.” Pepper’s look suggested she wasn’t sure about that.

“Do you know it’s a boy for sure?” Rae asked.

“It is,” Pepper stated. “That’s what Tony wanted, so that’s what I made.”

It wasn’t that Pepper’s grasp of reproduction was tenuous. It was that _her_ method of reproduction didn’t quite fit the normal human parameters. I mean, we didn’t even think those parts _worked_ for a long time, and we still didn’t have a good idea of why they’d suddenly kicked into gear. Although Pepper’s theory was that it was somehow _my_ fault, that I had foolishly wished for a baby and thus her body had accommodated me. Ridiculous, really. Probably.

“How’s the naming coming along?” prompted Rhodey, mockingly.

“I’m still pulling for Tiger,” I insisted. “Although ‘Gambit’ recently caught my eye. ‘Gambit James Stark’ has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“I want to name it Coco,” Pepper said stubbornly, as she always did. “Or Chocolate, and call it Coco for short. Or maybe Candy or Sugar or Honey…”

“Stop,” I told her, rolling my eyes. “My son is not going to be named like a Vegas stripper. How about ‘Rogue’? ‘Rogue Stark.’”

“ _Your_ names all sound like characters rejected from _Top Gun_ ,” Rhodey noted with amusement.

“No, no, I got it,” I insisted, inspiration striking. “’Awesome.’ Well, spell it ‘Awesome’ but pronounce it differently. Like ‘Aw- _soh_ -may.’ Yeah, that’d be spectacular,” I decided happily.

“I want cheddar,” Pepper announced.

“As a name, or to eat?”

“Both would be fine,” she judged.

“Sorry, you’re not getting either,” I countered. “What about ‘Excalibur’? ‘Excalibur Stark.’ That’s fantastic! That’s my new favorite.”

“You couldn’t go with a nice, simple name like… Jacob or Henry or John or something?” Rae suggested.

I gave her a look. “What, are you crazy? The whole world is waiting to see what we name this kid. It has to be something cutting-edge and eccentric and dramatic. ‘John Stark’ would be a huge letdown. Besides, he sounds like a patent lawyer. I want my kid to be a motorcycle daredevil or something.”

Rae rolled her eyes. “You’ll feel differently once he’s actually _born_ ,” she predicted.

So people had told me. But clearly I didn’t believe them.

“What about ‘Apple’?” Pepper offered, having been thinking about it quite hard.

“ _No_ ,” I told her with an exasperated sigh. “People don’t name their kids after fruits and vegetables, Pepper.” There was a pause as what I had said sunk in. “Okay, _normal_ people don’t name their kids after fruits and vegetables.”

“Yes, clearly ‘normal’ is what you’re aspiring to,” Rhodey commented.

“It’ll be so much fun when the baby’s born!” Ellie enthused. “I can babysit it, right?”

“You can have it, if you want,” Pepper offered generously.

“Pepper!” I chastised. “Now how’s little Excalibur going to feel when he gets older and people tell him you said that?”

“No one would tell him that,” Rae dictated, glancing at the young people, “because we know Pepper doesn’t really mean it, and is only saying it because she doesn’t feel good.”

Pepper looked as if she didn’t quite agree. “I want some blueberry yogurt,” she decided instead.

“You know, you guys really shouldn’t make excuses for her,” I chided, standing. “She just has a bad attitude and shouldn’t be indulged so much.”

“Where are you going?” asked Rhodey.

“To get her yogurt,” I told him, as if it should be obvious. “You guys got some, right?”

“If it was on the list, we got it,” Rhodey agreed.

For some reason he was smirking at me, but he often did that so I ignored it. “Are you gonna be okay without swinging for a while?” I asked Pepper.

“For a _short_ while,” she replied menacingly. I hurried into the house.

Five minutes later, Rhodey came to check on me. I had every container of yogurt they owned laid out on the kitchen table and was frantically digging through the fridge looking for more. “Tony, man, _what_ is going on?”

“I can’t find any blueberry yogurt, d----t!” I snapped, reaching the back of the fridge. “Didn’t you buy any blueberry?!”

Rhodey opened the fridge door wider and started looking as well. “Was blueberry specifically on the list?”

“Of _course_ it was on the list!” I told him hotly. “She’s _obsessed_ with blueberry yogurt this week!”

“Well, I don’t see any,” he judged, clearly not understanding the seriousness of this shortage. “Maybe the kids ate it.”

I straightened with resolve. “Okay, fine.” I pulled my car keys from my pocket. “Tell Pepper I’ll be right back, I’m just gonna run down to the grocery store.”

Rhodey grabbed my arm. “Tony, you aren’t serious!”

“Oh but I am,” I assured him. “She wants blueberry yogurt. There _is_ no blueberry yogurt. I have to _obtain_ blueberry yogurt. Trust me, it’s the only way this will end well.”

“Tony! Think for a second. You’re Iron Man! You can’t walk into a grocery store these days,” he pointed out. “There would be a frenzy.”

Unfortunately, Rhodey wasn’t exaggerating to stroke my ego. There were reporters outside the gates of the house right now waiting to catch a glimpse of me or Pepper, and they would definitely follow me into a public place like a grocery store. And it would take too long to have my bodyguards secure the place first. “Maybe I could send someone _else_ for the yogurt,” I reasoned. “Or just have the store deliver it—“ I pulled out my cell phone.

Rhodey took my arm again. “Tony, you’re going about this the wrong way.” His expression said he was about to impart some hard-earned wisdom to me. “Now, if you ever repeat what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny this conversation ever took place.” I nodded, intrigued. He drew me closer, even lowering his voice in case anyone else was nearby. “Pregnant women _aren’t really that fragile_.” I pulled back suspiciously—was he playing some kind of trick on me? This just didn’t seem right. “Trust me, I’ve been through two pregnancies, and pregnant women are actually really tough! They may _say_ they really want something—like a banana chocolate milkshake at three AM—but what they _really_ want is your attention, not the food.”

I didn’t think he was _lying_ by any means. But I still couldn’t quite grasp what he was saying. “You mean, if Pepper says she wants blueberry yogurt, what she _really_ wants is—“

“She wants to know that you were willing to get it for her, even if you _couldn’t_ ,” he revealed. “She wants to know you made the _effort_.”

“I don’t know,” I hedged. “She seemed perfectly happy with the actual blueberry yogurt in the past.”

“Well, yeah, of course, but that was just because you made the effort and _found_ it,” Rhodey explained. “But if you appear to make the effort and _fail_ —“

“It’s still okay?” This was opening up a whole new world of possibilities for me.

Rhodey clapped me heartily on the shoulder. “Now you’re getting it!”

“I can’t believe you’re discouraging me from doing the right thing,” I admitted, awed and impressed. “This is like a flashback to freshman year at MIT when you took me to that kegger!”

Rhodey didn’t seem to think the two events had anything in common, however. “No, no, no, you’ve _done_ the right thing, Tony,” he insisted. “You came in here and looked for the blueberry yogurt. I’m just saying, you don’t have to go over the top. Just take her another kind and make sure she knows you tried. And it’ll be fine.”

“You are so wise,” I told him. “I never realized it before.”

“Thanks,” Rhodey replied dryly. “My pleasure. Now, here you go.” He handed me a container of yogurt.

“Oh, no, not blackberry, it’s got _seeds_ in it,” I informed him. “Pepper doesn’t like _seeds_.”

Rhodey sighed and switched containers. “Cherry?”

I grinned. “Should be fine. You’re a life-saver, man!” I started to jog out the door.

“Hey Tony! The spoon?” Once again I felt secure in the knowledge that Rhodey had my back. I grabbed a spoon and headed back to Pepper.

“You’ve been gone a very long time,” she commented immediately, with displeasure.

“I know, honey, I’m sorry,” I told her, settling back on the swing. “Now, listen, I looked through the _whole_ fridge and I couldn’t find any blueberry yogurt. I mean, I got _every_ container out!”

“Did you put them back?” Rae interjected.

I ignored her irrelevant question and continued with my speech. “But there just wasn’t any blueberry at all. Rhodey is my witness!” I added suddenly as my friend reappeared. “Didn’t I have every yogurt container out, looking for the blueberry one?”

“Yeah, I had to put them back,” he confirmed dryly.

“You see?” I told Pepper. I couldn’t quite tell what her reaction was, and that made me nervous. “So, er, couldn’t find the blueberry, but I really, really tried, and I brought you cherry instead.” I held the container out to her proudly. She didn’t take it. A sinking feeling began inside me. “Um, sorry? Honey? I tried?”

She looked from the container to me with narrow, wrathful eyes. “I want blueberry! Blueberry!”

I winced. “Well, I know, honey, but—“

“Cherry does not fulfill the same nutritional needs as blueberry!” Pepper pointed out, her quiet voice seething with barely leashed fury. “I must have my nutritional needs fulfilled!”

“There’s blackberry,” Rhodey offered, seeing that the plan he’d devised for me had crashed and burned. “Would that be okay?”

“Blackberry has _seeds_ ,” Pepper told him, with loathing. She turned her laser beams on me again. “I require blueberry! I was promised blueberry! I want blueberry!”

“J---s f-----g C----t!” I finally exclaimed. “I _wanted_ to get you blueberry, but Rhodey told me not to!” It wasn’t that I _meant_ to betray my oldest friend. Well, I _did_ , kinda, actually, because after all his idea had turned out to be a complete disaster. “ _I_ was going to go out and get you the d—n blueberry, and _Rhodey_ told me not to bother, that you would be fine with cherry!”

“Jim!” I heard in the background, along with protestations of innocence.

“But,” I added, pushing myself out of the swing, “now I’m gonna go do it, I’m gonna find you some blueberry, which I should have just done before—“

A hand alighted on my arm and I looked down at my lovely wife. “You were going to go _out_ to get my blueberry yogurt?” she asked. “Out to a _store_?”

“Well, it doesn’t grow on trees.”

“Oh, Tony!” And she threw her arms around me. I took that as leave to sit back down. “You’re very thoughtful. There would have been reporters at the grocery store! And you wouldn’t have known where the yogurt even _was_.”

She was now leaning against me, seemingly appreciative of my yogurt-hunting efforts (finally) and no longer peevish. This was definitely not the stoic and contained Pepper I had known for years, but rather the moody and mercurial Pepper I had lived with the past few months. Still, it was Pepper, and the quick changes made life even more exciting.

“I’m sure there would’ve been a yogurt shelf or something,” I assured her, my arm around her shoulder soothingly. “Probably right there with the other fruit stuff.”

“You’re very sweet, Tony.”

That was what I liked to hear. “So do you want to eat the cherry for the time being?” I suggested. “You can have blueberry when we get home.”

“Okay,” she agreed, as though the decision were minor. And she started eating the cherry yogurt. I looked over at Rhodey, to give him a thumbs-up on his plan as it was brilliant after all, but he merely glared back at me while Rae shook her head in disbelief nearby.

Fortunately, the conversation moved on. I preferred when it came back to me and Pepper, though.

“Now I know this is Mike’s birthday,” Rae was saying, “but I do have a little present for Tony and Pepper.”

“Oh, goody, I like presents!” I exclaimed.

“I’ve stopped myself from buying anything so far,” Rae went on, “but then I saw this and it was just too perfect!” I couldn’t imagine anything being ‘too perfect.’ Rae produced a flat rectangular box and handed it to me.

I had a feeling, suddenly, that it was _not_ an awesome new attachment for my plasma torch. “Look, Pepper, the paper has little bunnies on it,” I pointed out. I tried to model appropriate social behavior for Pepper during these difficult times. “Isn’t that cute?”

“We _ate_ rabbit once,” Pepper reminisced hungrily. “In Montana. At the testing ground. It was good.”

“Er, right. Come on, let’s open this.”

Rae looked very pleased with the gift, so I sent Pepper a little mental kick to be gracious no matter what was inside. Finally we fought off the tape and ribbon, the wrapping paper and tissue paper, to reveal—a tiny aviator jumpsuit and matching bomber jacket.

“Oh my G-d!” I responded, genuinely impressed. “This is _awesome_ , Rae! This totally rocks.” I pulled something else from the box. “And look—little socks with airplanes on them!”

“Standard Air Force issue,” Rhodey insisted.

_Pepper_ , I nudged mentally. _Say something nice_. So far she was just staring at the clothes dubiously.

“It’s-it’s-it’s—“ she began unpromisingly. “It’s—too small!”

_That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind._

“Well, I think it’s supposed to fit three to six month olds,” Rae explained, reaching for the tag. “I mean, the baby won’t be able to wear it right away, but it should last—“

“OH,” Pepper realized suddenly. “It’s for the _baby_!”

I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. I mean, the idea of Pepper thinking Rae had, what, lost her mind and gotten doll clothing for Pepper or I to wear—it was just too funny.

“Tony, don’t you laugh!” Rae demanded immediately. “It was just a mistake!”

And not Pepper’s last. “I didn’t realize we had to _dress_ the creature,” she added distastefully.

“Well, not ‘til it comes _out_ ,” I informed her, still giggling.

“I thought we could just— _wrap_ it in things,” she persisted, much to my amusement. Once I had started it was hard to stop. “Like sheets and towels. At least until it was independently mobile.”

Rae was looking pretty horrified at this point—I mean, Pepper seemed to have about as much maternal instinct as a coconut, and I was laughing hysterically at her for it. I could almost _see_ Rae plotting how to remove the baby from us and raise it herself.

Okay, time to be responsible. I attempted to straighten up and put my arm around Pepper’s shoulders. “You’ll _love_ dressing the baby!” I assured her. “Think of all the nice clothes you can buy for him. And, you can change his clothes whenever you want! Several times a day. You can’t do that to _me_.”

“That’s true,” Pepper agreed speculatively. I felt this had always been cause for disappointment on her part. “Sheets and towels _aren’t_ very stylish.”

“Um, no offense, Aunt Pepper,” Ellie began, with a remark that was sure to be offensive, “but what did you guys think all the furniture was for? I mean, were you seriously gonna put just sheets and towels in the bureau and the changing table and everything?”

Pepper and I blinked at her. “Aw, s—t,” I said after a moment. “I knew there was something we forgot to get. Baby furniture!”

Many eyerolls and comments of disbelief met this statement. “Regular furniture won’t do?” Pepper inquired.

“No, you gotta have, like, cribs and playpens and highchairs and all kinds of stuff,” I explained to her. “See, I _knew_ about it!” I protested to the rest of the group. “I just forgot.”

“Well _that_ explains why you two _haven’t_ been buying out half the baby stores in San Francisco,” Rhodey remarked.

Immediately I tried to shove the blame onto Pepper. “You said you’d been researching this stuff!”

“It takes some time to assimilate the results of my research,” she pointed out coolly. “I must divert much of my mental energies towards developing the… _baby_ properly.” She looked thoughtful. “We’re required to purchase furniture items of a specific kind?”

“Yeah, mostly pens to store the kid in,” I confirmed.

“That makes sense,” she nodded.

“Um, there’s a lot of other things it’s good to have before the baby arrives,” Rae ventured. “Maybe you and I should go shopping sometime. Soon. Tomorrow would be good.”

“Oh, can I come?” asked Ellie eagerly.

“Tomorrow would be _great_ ,” I agreed. “There’s a championship game me and Rhodey were gonna watch. So you ladies are free to trot out the credit cards.”

“Oh, can I watch the game, too?” asked Mike hopefully.

Rae gave me a narrow look. “It sounds like it would be a good idea for _you_ to do a little research on the subject of babies, too, Tony.”

“Well, I _am_ building a robot nanny, does that count?” Her look indicated no. But this was the woman who didn’t trust the carpet-cleaning robot I’d built her, solely because of one unfortunate incident with a slipcover.

All too soon the end of the gathering approached and Pepper and I headed back through the house, ready to make our dash to the car. We liked trying to beat the photographers’ flashes.

“Happy Birthday, Big M,” I told Mike, giving him a manly hug. “Tomorrow’s the game, right, and then tomorrow night we go out with the buddies? Tell all the girls who are underage to wear the same color or something so I know which ones not to speak to or sit by. Tabloids, you know.”

“Uh, right, sure,” he promised dubiously.

“Happy Birthday, Mr. Rhodes,” Pepper told him, patting his arm lightly.

“Hey, Aunt Pepper, how come you’ve been calling me ‘Mr. Rhodes’ all day?” Mike finally inquired. I hadn’t really noticed it before, personally.

“Tony said I wasn’t to call any adults by their first names unless I intended to have sex with them,” Pepper announced flatly.

“Oh, that’s right,” I nodded. “And since you’re a legal adult now, pal—“ I broke off as I saw the Rhodes family staring at me. “What? It’s a long-standing rule we have.”

“It’s like there’s some kind of vortex above your house that sucks all your good sense away, Tony,” Rhodey finally commented, shaking his head.

Well, I didn’t know what _that_ was supposed to mean. “You don’t know what I had to go through all those years, when she would only call me ‘Mr. Stark’—“

“Yes, I do,” Rhodey interrupted. “Because you described it to me all the time.”

“Well, then, you ought to understand that the first name usage is a precious gift,” I replied loftily. “An _intimacy_ , in fact.”

Pepper tugged on my arm. “I’m hungry! I want some pumpkin. Hmm, maybe we could name the baby ‘Pumpkin.’”

“On the other hand,” I decided, “maybe there _is_ some kind of brain-sucking phenomenon following us. Well, okay,” I conceded. “Pepper, you may continue to call Mike by his first name. I give you special permission to do so.”

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “It might be too weird for me.”

“Well, she’ll probably come around eventually,” I assured Mike. “Oh, but if I catch you _looking_ at Aunt Pepper, the deal’s off, plus I break your legs.”

“Tony!”

“I just wanted him to know the score,” I insisted to all the people who tried to impede clear communication. “Now he can’t say he wasn’t warned.”

“Gee, thanks, Uncle Tony.”

“You ready to go for it, Pep?” I asked her, opening the front door. She nodded grimly. “Okay. Bye, guys! See you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Tony! Bye, Pepper!”

**

“So you think Excalibur is too much?”

“Just a little.”

“How about… President? Wouldn’t that be cool—President James Stark?”

Rhodey gave me a look. “At least you didn’t suggest Emperor.”

That gave me an idea. “Caesar! Caesar Stark. That has a nice ring to it.” Rhodey seemed skeptical. “What? There was Caesar Romero—he was on _Batman_.”

“It’s kind of a lot for a little kid to handle,” Rhodey opined.

I dismissed that criticism, since it applied to most of the names I thought up. “I wish one of us was Latino, I would totally name him Jesus,” I sighed. “But that would be weird.”

“Finally, he admits something would be weird.”

“Adventure Stark? Word names are very hot right now,” I mused.

“Phoenix,” Rhodey suggested.

“Implies there was a failure at some point,” I decided. “Also, Phoenix Stark doesn’t sound right. What about… Stud?”

Rhodey snorted. “You can’t be serious.”

“There was a Studs Terkel,” I argued.

“And do you know anything about him, apart from his name?”

“Well, no.” But I didn’t see what that had to do with anything. “Rocket?”

“Too obvious.”

“Sherlock?”

“No s—t.”

I winced. “Hadn’t thought of that. I was prepared for all the other jokes. Hercules?”

“Please. No.”

“Blaze?”

“Actually _not_ bizarre enough.”

“Ferrous?”

Rhodey frowned at my curveball. “Like in Ferris wheel? Or Ferris Bueller? Oh, no, I get it, as in Fe, iron.” I grinned at my cleverness. “Way too cutesy. He’ll be known as ‘little Iron Man’ no matter what, no need to heap it on him.”

“No, ‘little Iron Man’ is something else,” I assured Rhodey, who rolled his eyes when he realized what I was talking about. “Hey, _I_ didn’t think of it, Pepper—“

“TMI,” Rhodey declared, holding up his hand. “Where _is_ Pepper, anyway? And, I can’t believe you would miss an opportunity to name the kid after yourself. I figured you would want a whole passel of Anthonys and Antonias running around.”

“I dunno, ‘Junior’ doesn’t appeal to me,” I admitted. “Now if I could do ‘the Third’ or something, that’d be cool. Also I’m afraid it would confuse Pepper. Who _should_ be in with our lunches any moment.” I looked at my office door, hoping Pepper would burst in on cue. But she didn’t.

“Alexander,” Rhodey suggested. “Shades of Alexander the Great.”

I shook my head. “Shades of Lex Luthor on _Smallville_. That’s why _his_ father named him that. Lots of psychological trauma resulted.”

“Well at least you’ve done your research,” Rhodey deadpanned.

_Then_ Pepper came in with lunch. “You’re late,” I accused. I was a busy man these days, saving the world _and_ reading stock reports. I didn’t have so much time to just loaf around.

“Sorry. I was growing a lung,” Pepper shot back, putting the food on my desk.

“Heard _that_ one before.”

“Well, it takes several days.” Rhodey, I noted, had a juicy hamburger, while _I_ was stuck with a salad. At least it had chicken on it.

Before we could dig in, Pepper produced a slip of paper and handed it to me. “I have new name suggestions for the baby,” she announced proudly.

I looked over the list. “Were you putting random letters together again?”

“No, they’re words in other languages,” she explained, “which all mean ‘honey’ or ‘sugar.’”

Rhodey took the list from me. “Mel, Miere, Zahar, Melato, Zucchero… Hey, some of these could be pretty cool.”

“Yes, yes, they’d be great,” I replied, giving Pepper a steady gaze, “if we were giving birth to an exotic ham. But it’s a baby boy, so… no.” Pepper narrowed her eyes at me. Then she picked up my salad and headed for the door. “Hey! Where are you going with my lunch?!”

“To my desk,” she replied shortly, “so I can eat it. I require additional nutrients.” And she was gone.

“Can you believe that?” I asked of Rhodey, snitching one of his fries.

“Yes,” he replied. “You’re kind of a jerk sometimes.” He pulled the fries closer to his side of the desk. “I don’t know why you want to p—s her off all the time.”

“Well, it never _used_ to bother her,” I pointed out. “I blame the hormones. Can I have some of your—“

“No. Well, if it makes her mad _now_ , you should stop,” Rhodey advised logically. “Rae says that if the mom is under a lot of stress, the baby will come out nervous. And _your_ kid is gonna have an uphill battle in the nerves department anyway.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I avowed. “But, I don’t want Pepper’s bad mood to curdle the kid, that’s for sure.” I pressed the intercom. “Come back in here, Pepper, honey,” I suggested, in a pleasant tone. Warily Pepper returned (without the salad, I noted). “Hey, come here, baby, you wanna sit on my lap?”

“That position is no longer comfortable for me,” she reminded me, which was very sad.

“Oh, right. Well, let’s sit on the couch together.” I sat down right next to her and put my arm around her. I didn’t want Pepper to be mad at me. It was just difficult to adjust my style. I wasn’t used to taking her feelings into account. “That didn’t come out right,” I decided after a moment. “Well, anyway, how about this—the next name you think up for the baby, that you’ve thought about and really think you could give to a kid, we’ll discuss it seriously. Promise.”

She nodded. “Okay. I have one.”

I blinked. “Already?” She nodded again. “That you’ve put a lot of thought into, and really want a person to carry for his entire life?” She nodded. I gave Rhodey a dubious glance. “Okay. What is it?”

“Peanut.”

“Uh-huh.” I looked back at Rhodey, glad I had a witness to this. I struggled to look as though I was really considering it. “Peanut. That’s what you would like our son to be called for his entire life.”

“Yes.”

“When he graduates from high school—Peanut. When he gets his doctorate—Peanut. When he gives us grandchildren—Peanut. Provided he could even _get_ a girl with that name,” I couldn’t help but add.

She agreed with each scenario. “And, his middle name could be Coco! Peanut Coco Stark.”

“No way, his middle name is _definitely_ going to be James,” I reminded her.

“Peanut James Stark,” Rhodey tried. “I like it.”

I glared at him for his unhelpful comments. “Perhaps he could have a nickname,” Pepper went on. “We could call him Nutty.”

“Granted, he’ll probably get that nickname no matter what,” Rhodey deadpanned.

I couldn’t take it anymore and stood up. “No. Go back to your desk.”

Pepper stood as well. “You _said_ we would discuss—“

“ _Serious_ names, Pepper,” I told her, starting to get genuinely peeved now. “Not just whatever random word you happened to see thirty seconds ago!”

“And how is _your_ criteria any better?” she shot back. “Aw- _soh_ -may?”

“Well, at least I’m putting _some_ thought into it!” I argued. “I have a _philosophy_ , a _goal_ , of finding a distinctive and powerful name for our child, who is already a celebrity before he’s even been born!”

“Names are just random collections of syllables,” Pepper replied. “They’re simply identifiers. I don’t understand why they matter so much.”

Ah-ha. Perhaps we had found the crux of the problem here. I didn’t know how Pepper’s people identified themselves, but obviously it wasn’t by anything _we_ would think of as a name. So maybe she really wasn’t grasping the social implications here. Now I wished Rhodey _wasn’t_ around, because this idea might be easier to convey mentally, or at least by asking questions about her early life on Earth. She had been given the name Pepper because that was the name of the human girl whose place she had taken—it wasn’t because her parents, in delighted expectation of her impending arrival, had careful considered the wealth of names available, their meanings, their style, their image, their history, and then somehow decided that the one that best expressed their love, values, hopes, and dreams for their future child was… Pepper. Granted, it was hard to imagine what hopes and dreams would lead one to the name of Pepper, unless they began with cheerleading and ended with a stripper pole, but still, surely the _real_ Pepper Smith’s parents had had their reasons, which they felt were good ones. Oh, except wasn’t her dad an abusive drunk or something? Maybe he’d just been eating a taco at the time she was born, then. But, since _we_ were not abusive drunks or careless, shallow parents who merely followed trends, _we_ were going to choose a name with dignity, with substance, that respected whatever paths our son chose to take in his life, but that also reflected how we hoped he would want to present himself to the world. A name he would be proud to answer to for his entire life, because he knew his parents had chosen it with love.

So, not Peanut.

And probably not Excalibur, either.

Which left us back at square one, unfortunately, with Pepper unaware of where square one even _was_.

“Ohhh, I see,” she said suddenly.

I blinked, wondering how long I had been standing there just staring at her. I snuck a quick peek at Rhodey, who seemed confused. “What do you see, Pepper?” he asked.

“Naming a child is a very emotional event which ties into humans’ desire to become immortal by creating a legacy,” Pepper explained.

Hmm, I didn’t recall thinking any of _that_. “I suppose there’s some validity to that argument,” I replied cautiously.

“And names are closely tied to humans’ perceptions of themselves and others,” she added.

I _definitely_ hadn’t thought _that_. I didn’t _think_ I’d thought it, anyway. But perhaps Pepper had reached deeper into my mind and pulled up some subconscious motive or desire. Our telepathic connection had been a little static-y lately, due to hormones and/or growing a new person inside her, so it was nice to see that it still worked.

Rhodey was still looking between the two of us suspiciously. “Did I miss something?”

“Yes, Pepper and I momentarily traveled to a higher plane of existence so we could commune as pure thought,” I told him. “You should try it sometime. Well, it’s probably too kinky for Rae.”

_That_ put him off the subject. “I don’t think it matters _what_ you name the kid, he’s gonna be screwy anyway,” he muttered, turning back to his lunch.

“I will go and ponder this new information,” Pepper promised thoughtfully.

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed. “Let’s just hope we’re done pondering before the kid makes an appearance. Say, Pep,” I added, “why don’t you ponder it in here, while eating that salad? I’ll go get it for you, you can sit on the couch.”

“Alright.” She sat back down comfortably. “There is also a hamburger on my desk, which you may have.”

I grinned. “Okay. Thanks, Pepper!”

**

“Here’s the latest batch from the library,” I announced, setting a heavy canvas bag full of books on the floor. “They still can’t find some of your more obscure requests, but they assured me they’re still looking. Hey, did you know that a lot of people who work at the library do it for _free_? No joke. And they don’t accept tips, either. I thought I would give them a nice donation sometime.”

Pepper finally looked up at me from the issue of _Smithsonian_ she was perusing. With just a month until what we hoped would be her due date, Dr. Robinson had decided Pepper ought to be under constant supervision, and preferably in bed. This was fine by me until he also mentioned no exertions. Then it sounded really dull. Fortunately Pepper had infinitely more patience than I did and was using her enforced vacation to catch up on her reading.

“Where’s my smoothie?” she demanded flatly. Keep in mind that ‘infinitely more patience’ isn’t really that much when you’re starting out at _my_ level.

“Scoopie, would you make Pepper a fruit smoothie, please?” I requested of one of our domestic robots. I had transported several of them to the Avengers’ Mansion in New York, whose secret underground mad scientist medical facilities were the best place to bring our little something into the world. “You want banana? What else?”

“Mango and avocado,” Pepper replied. I suppressed my urge to gag at the combination. Apparently avocadoes were very nutritious—but did she have to eat them on _everything_?

“You could just have Scoopie make your smoothies whenever you want,” I pointed out, not for the first time. “You don’t have to wait for me to come back.”

“I could’ve gotten pregnant on my own, too. But I like to let you be involved in things,” she shot back. The reply was tart and nonsensical, truly vintage Pepper.

“G-d, I missed you,” I sighed happily, sitting down on the edge of the bed and kissing her cheek.

“You were only gone for an hour,” she pointed out.

“A whole hour! Nearly unbearable. How wrong would it be to take the suit next time instead of a car?”

“Slightly.” She set aside her magazine and gave me a serious gaze. I felt as though something important was about to happen. “I have been—“ A glass of blended fruit popped up between us, held aloft by a robot. “Thank you,” she told it, taking the glass. “I have been working on our major dilemma.”

I scooted closer. “Ooh, _working_? I’ve sure been thinking about it a lot, too, but Dr. Robinson was pretty strict about no sex.”

She blinked at me. “Our dilemma about what to name the baby,” she clarified.

“Oh. _That_ dilemma.” The best I had come up with during Name Search 2.0 was Howard, my father’s name. Hey, other celebrities were naming their kids Homer and Orson, so the style was very hot right now. But… eh, I wasn’t completely in love with it. I kind of wanted the kid to have a more individual name—something meaningful, of course, but without the weight of an icon like Howard Stark hanging over him. Unfortunately I didn’t like most of the other family tree choices, either. So the default slot had been filled by Howard James in my mind for a while now.

“I have prepared my final name suggestion,” Pepper informed me, matter-of-factly. I got the impression that she still wasn’t one-hundred-percent convinced on the social importance of names—she’d gone her whole Earthly life as a ‘Pepper,’ true, which ordinarily would have made her quite sensitive to the power of names, or so one would assume. But in _this_ Pepper’s case, there were so many other things to learn about being human, and so many other reasons for people to snicker at her besides her name, it probably never registered.

“Your _final_ suggestion?” I repeated. “You’re not going to try any more if this one’s a dud?” To her credit, Pepper had been trying really hard. But the ideas she came up with were still… just wrong, for the most part. “You’ve ‘prepared’ it, huh? It’s not another combination name, is it? Because we just can’t name a kid Pony or Topper or Pepperony. Penny isn’t too bad, I guess, but not for a boy.”

“It _is_ somewhat of a combination of concepts,” Pepper admitted, which didn’t sound promising. “Rollie, please bring my laptop over here.” The little table-shaped robot wheeled itself over, Pepper’s laptop resting on its surface. She swung the desk part over her lap in the bed and started to peck at it.

“You haven’t been doing _work_ , have you?” I checked suspiciously.

The sidelong glance she gave me confirmed my fears. “I’ve been monitoring,” she tried to spin it. “Nothing strenuous.”

“Pepper,” I began sternly, “you’re on medical leave! Your first _ever_. The company won’t collapse if you don’t check your email for a day. You need to rest.”

“I’m confined to this bed in a soundproofed room,” she pointed out dryly. “My ‘resting’ needs are adequately fulfilled, I assure you.”

“Whatever. Don’t make me suspend your work email access.”

Wisely she didn’t challenge me on this, because then I would’ve had to do it, and then she would’ve had to override it, and then I would’ve felt emasculated. And since we couldn’t have sex right now, I would’ve had to put the suit on and go blow something up to feel better, and then Pepper would’ve worried about me, and—well, it just would’ve become a whole _thing_. Luckily Pepper knew when giving in was the strongest option.

“Would you like to see what I have prepared?” she asked instead, drawing my attention back to the main issue.

“Yes, please.”

Pepper indicated the computer file open on the screen. “First, I compiled a list of thirty-seven things I enjoy on Earth.”

“Why thirty-seven?”

“That was all I could think of.”

I scrolled through the list. “Cotton candy, honey, rainbows, books, Tony, Ferragamo shoes—this list isn’t in any kind of order, is it?” I checked. I was prepared to be insulted if I wasn’t at the top.

“No.”

I nodded, satisfied, and continued to peruse her collection. “The Rhodes family, coffee, explosions, fireworks, chocolate, sex with Tony, Armani suits, brown sugar, salmon, avocadoes… This is a very complete list,” I decided. “All the things you like best, huh?” She nodded. I was pleased to see my own name on there four times. “Then what did you do?”

She went to the next page. “I converted each item to a numerical value and created a mathematical expression to describe their sum.”

There were a lot of equations on the next few pages. No need to go into the gory details, but if you can imagine something like ‘sex with Tony’ divided by ‘peanut butter’ times the square root of “Every Breath You Take” all taken to the power of ‘sparkly things,’ you’ll have some idea of the level of abstraction we were dealing with here. I checked Pepper’s figures very carefully. Then I checked her math, cha-ching! Sorry. Anyway, her logic seemed reasonably sound, once you made the initial leap.

“So don’t keep me in suspense,” I insisted. “What does x equal? What’s the kid’s name?”

“After compressing all my favorite things about Earth into one numerical expression,” Pepper repeated, “I have determined that they are best represented by… 4862.”

“Forty-eight sixty-two?” I said dubiously. “A _number_?”

She gave me a scornful look. “It’s an _equation_. Did you think the numbers would somehow equal… _banana_?”

“Forty-eight sixty-two,” I said again, more thoughtfully. “That would be his name? Forty-Eight Sixty-Two James Stark. Forty-Eight Stark. Forty Stark. Hey, Forty, time to come in for dinner!” I tried. “Forty, have you finished your homework yet? Forty-Eight Sixty-Two James Stark, where have you _been_ all night?!”

Pepper patted my arm. “You’re projecting again.”

“Oh, right,” I agreed. “Our kid’s gonna be very well-behaved. Um, you’re gonna have to handle that part. I don’t have enough practice at it.”

“Don’t worry, Tony,” she assured me. “I have a strategy.”

That sounded a little sinister, so I decided to go back to the name. “You really want to name the kid after a number, huh?”

“It’s not _just_ a number,” she reminded me. “It’s the sum of all my favorite people and things. But, if you don’t like it…”

I gave it some thought. It was unorthodox, certainly. It was bold. No one would see it coming. And it was way better than Peanut. “Well… okay, Pepper,” I finally decided. I grinned suddenly as a sense of relief flooded me—at least the kid had a _name_ now, and a name that reminded his mother of all the things she loved (even if he’d never understand _why_ unless he got an advanced degree in mathematics). Now we just had everything _else_ related to raising a child to figure out.

Pepper smiled too. “See, that wasn’t very hard. We just had to think about it.”

“For _months_ ,” I reminded her. “Usually I make decisions in seconds.” I pondered this new turn a bit longer. “Let’s not tell anyone about this, until the baby’s born,” I suggested, in case she didn’t realize that. “Not even friends. We’ll keep it as a surprise for the big day.”

“Okay,” Pepper agreed. “Do you want some smoothie?”

I pushed the greenish-brown concoction aside. “No, thanks. So—you wanna look at these books I schlepped to the library for? And why are they all about tropical tree fungus?”

“Just a passing interest,” she assured me.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Two more stories in this series to go. I have to type them from the handwritten versions first.


End file.
